Alan Shepard

Wow!

Alan Shepard was one of seven men chosen from over 500 candidates to
be a member of the first group of astronauts in 1959.

Alan Shepard was born in 1923 in New Hampshire. He attended the United
States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland where he graduated in 1944.
Shepard served on a destroyer during World War II and was a Navy test pilot
at the time he was selected to join the Astronaut Corps. He became the
first American to enter space on May 5,1961. Though Shepard spent only 5
minutes in actual space aboard Freedom 7, he laid the groundwork for the
United States to become the great innovator in space exploration we know
today. Alan Shepard was grounded from 1963 to 1969 due to an inner ear
ailment. After treatment, he was able to return to the corps of active
astronauts and became the fifth man to walk on the Moon in 1971. While on
the Moon Shepard played golf with a club he had carried onboard the lunar
spacecraft of Apollo 14. Following his Moon adventure, he became an admiral
in the United States Navy, the first astronaut to ever achieve such a rank.
In 1974, Shepard retired from the astronaut corps and the Navy. After
retirement, he successfully entered the business world guided by the same
dedication with which he approached his space career. Alan Bartlett
Shepard, Jr. died in California on July 22, 1998.

A Question

Alan Shepard was truly a space pioneer who had "all the right stuff". What
prepared him to be America's first man in space?